Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Creative Worship: Prepare Him Room

One of my favorite Christmas traditions has become having a special time of creative worship together with my children. It is always focused on Jesus and usually includes making something with our hands in a form of worship.

You can read about last year here and all previous years are linked here. The phrase I've had on my heart this year is prepare Him room. We've all heard that little part in Joy to the World and my favorite song this year also has the same title from Sovereign Grace Music.

With that thought on my heart, I woke up early one morning and drew a little chalk art - it is on the wonky side and far from perfect, but I'm sharing it here in its imperfect state in case it invites any of you into this preparation in your own homes. You can download the image here.

Rachel made muffins using a mix I'd gotten on sale and we enjoyed a lovely meal together!

In my quiet time that morning, I thought about this idea of preparing. I looked up the word and found that it comes from Latin and means to make ready beforehand.

Then I looked it up in a concordance to see how it was used in the Bible and noticed a few themes:
- food {bread, banquet, stew}
- sacrifices
- battle
- guests

I asked a few questions of my children as we were talking about this together:
- Who came to prepare for Jesus? What did he do?
- How does God prepare for us? {sent a Savior, prepares a place for us in Heaven}
- How can we prepare Him room? {brainstorm ideas}
- Sing Joy to the World; how does our heart prepare Him room?
- Listen to Prepare Him Room, did you hear these words, "Oh, our hearts, as busy as Bethlehem; Hear Him knock, don't say there's no room in the inn..."

4 comments:

Beautiful worship. I appreciate the emphasis on 'prepare him room.' We can plan for all of the events of Christmas, but if we neglect to carve out time and space and thought to Him, all our planning is for nought. I've enjoyed following this tradition of yours throughout the years.